


Strong Enough

by Pokebob



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, No Apocalypse, Team as Family, all the characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-23 10:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10717362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokebob/pseuds/Pokebob
Summary: Mutant hunters have made their move, and kidnapped a huge swathe of mutants from all across New York state, with the intent to wipe out the "Mutant Menace" once and for all. But when they fail to take the Brotherhood together as a complete set, they'll find that it was the greatest mistake they could have ever made.





	1. Ambushed

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if this is a thing that needs to be said or not, but this story is fan-fiction. It is a work of love, and one I don't get paid for doing. So uh, I think that covers my bases.
> 
>  
> 
> Sort of a Fred-centric "join the x-men" story. He doesn't get a whole lot of love in fan fiction, which is a shame, because he didn't get a whole lot of love in the show either. Well for what it's worth, *I* noticed the radish roses.

It should have been an ordinary day.

  
At least, it started out that way. Tuesday morning started out like it always did. Pietro would have been up for hours by the time anybody else even thought of waking up, never sitting still long enough to do more than scarf down some of the breakfast he’d stolen for them, and complain about being bored, before zipping off to entertain himself.

  
Lance took his sweet time getting started that morning, knowing he had to apologize to kitty about the “thing” that happened in the park two days ago, but still agonizing over what to say about it. He eventually swallowed his pride, grabbed his keys, and headed out as well, but not before warning them to call 911 if he didn’t come back before lunch.

  
And as he did every morning, Todd found himself being flung across the house by one of Wanda’s hexbolts after saying SOMETHING ridiculous to her. Not one to be deterred, the lovesick boy followed her around for a good fifteen minutes attempting to fix the hole he insisted upon digging for himself. It was a valiant effort to be sure, but one that could never come to fruition.

  
Fred caught him after a sixth hex sent him plummeting out of a broken second story window, he himself having taken up a comfortable spot in the back yard, content with watching the clouds go by while sunning himself for the time being. It wasn’t as if they had cable anymore. Or electricity, for that matter.

  
“You really shouldn’t keep pestering Wanda like that,” Fred chided him. “Wunna’ these days she’s really gonna wind up hurting you.”

  
“Aw, she don’t really mean it, yo” Todd gave him a crooked grin. “My Snookums is just a little wound up from the drive-bys is all. Shits scary, ya know?”

  
The larger boy grunted in annoyance. “Wish they’d stop doing that. It’s so creepy the way they just sorta roll on past the house, not stopping. Just watching. They need to just leave us alone. We aint even done nothin’ wrong lately.”

  
As if on cue, a sleek black van drove past them. It slowed to a crawl, its darkly tinted windows hiding its occupants and their intentions. Whatever was inside that van, and others like it, certainly couldn’t be benevolent.

  
Todd stuck out tongue when the van had passed. “Fuckin’ creepers. Man, we really oughta do somethin’ ‘bout those guys. Hey! We should get Pietro to take apart their engine while they drive by here! They wouldn’t know what hit ‘em!”

  
“Aw leave it. As long as they don’t stop the van and start harassing us, we probably shouldn’t cause any more trouble. Lance is STILL trying to work off the fine from the last time we decided to get even with people who were messin’ with us.” Fred patted his little buddy on the back soothingly. They couldn’t afford any more trouble. The last thing they needed was for Lance to have to come home and find an angry mob on their doorstep. Again.

  
“Yeah yeah.”

  
“Oh! I know! We can go downtown and hit up that new pizza place – you know, the one on the corner of First and Abigail?”

  
Todd snorted. “Yeah? With what money? Lemme tell you, pickins’ is real slim these days, what with everybody eyeballin’ me for bein’ a mutant an’ all. They just don’t leave their shit unattended like they used to yo.”

  
Fred rolled his eyes. “Uh, YEAH. That’s why I said we go to the NEW place. The one that doesn’t realize we like to dine and dash yet. This way, even if you can’t get enough cash, we still get to eat”

 

 

And so Tuesday morning turned into Tuesday afternoon.

  
Todd made his way over to the train station, hoping to nab a wallet or two from some unsuspecting out of towners. There weren’t very many of those these days though. Touristy types tended to stay away from Bayville these days.

  
Fred scoped out the new pizza place, checking to see if he recognized any of the staff from any other local restaurants, making sure that nobody was there who would bust them if their dinner wound up being a five finger special.

  
Lance returned home, looking exhausted, but like a fifty pound weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His chat with Kitty had gone well, and despite having words with Summers, the Brotherhood boy had managed to keep his temper in check. No tremors meant bonus points with his girl, especially given the long term rivalry he’d had with Scott.

  
Wanda remained sequestered in her room, her nose buried in some dusty old tome left by Agatha Harkness. She’d been reading it nonstop for the past few days. Leaving for something as mundane as pizza seemed to be a waste of her time. Besides, she knew if she asked, Todd would gladly bring her a few slices home.

  
Pietro called them from two towns over, wanting to know if they needed him to steal anything from the store. He got the usual requests - milk, cereal, mouthwash – stupid shit that he could have gotten at the gas station six blocks from their house. He complied anyway, and also picked up a few odds and ends for his own personal stash, and patted the conspicuous lump in his back pocket - the real reason he’d traveled that far to begin with.

 

 

It wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon became Tuesday evening that things began to go so horribly, horribly wrong.

  
“This is all you managed to get?” Lance asked, recounting the money on the iron wrought café table sitting outside the pizza place. “Even if I added in the rest of MY cash, it still isn’t going to be enough for more than one pizza, and that’s it!”

  
“I’m tellin’ you dawg, pickins’ was slim today!” Todd whined. “Ain’t nobody around nomore. And shit, the ones that DO gotta stick around ain’t gonna risk gettin’ too close ta me. How come you didn’t tell us this place was so fuckin’ expensive Freddy?”

  
Fred groaned. He SHOULD have found out about the prices when he was checking the cashiers. “Look, I’m sorry man! I wasn’t payin’ attention to that – I was just trying to make sure nobody was gonna chase us outta here as soon as we sat down!”

  
The three teens squabbled among themselves for a few minutes, trying to figure out their plan of action. They didn’t REALLY want to dine and dash, though it was certainly well within their wheelhouse. This place was nice, the food smelled fantastic, and perhaps most importantly, there was a distinct lack of a “No muties” sign in the window. Being able to come back here in the future would be nice.

  
A sudden gust of wind signaled the arrival of their final guest. Pietro draped himself over a chair and looked at the menu with causal distain. A split second later, he tossed the menu back on the table, and addressed his teammates.

  
“Nice place. Bit expensive for our budget though, isn’t it?” The speedsters eyes twinkled mischievously “Or are you going to try and tell me that somehow the Toad managed to swipe the wallet of a hedge fund manager?”

“Fuck off. I don’t see you contributing to the cause.” Lance snapped. “I’d actually like to be able to come back to this place in the future, so we’re going to at least TRY to pay for a meal here. Just as soon as we figure out what we can get that A, feeds all of us, and B, costs less than nineteen dollars and seventy two cents.”

  
Pietro winced sympathetically, “Ouch. Rough day for the little slimeball, huh?”

  
Todd grimaced “You ain’t kiddin’ yo.”

  
“Well, have no fear, your fearless leader is here” Pietro was up again, and bowed with a slight flourish. “I wasn’t going to share this you guys, since, let’s face it, you REALLY don’t deserve it, bu~ut…”  
He produced a fat wad of cash from his back pocket, composed entirely of hundred dollar bills. Deft fingers spread the bills like magician with a deck of cards.

  
“Woah…”

  
“No fuckin’ way!”

  
“Pietro where did you GET all that money?

  
“Swiped the wallet of a hedge fund manager” Pietro said smugly. “Or were you not paying attention to my subtle jab back there? Now go on, each one of you take one, before my common sense gets the better of me. The rest can go to the electricity. If we’re lucky, there might even be enough for them to turn the water back on too.”

  
A chorus of thank-yous and one begrudging apology from Lance meant that things could, for a short while, be normal. For now, they wouldn’t have to worry about not showing their faces at yet another restaurant. They’d have their lights, and water back on tomorrow. One hundred dollars for each of them to spend, actually spend, on themselves, on whatever they wanted. For now, they could joke, and laugh and fantasize about what they’d do to the large chested waitress who brought them their pizzas – all seven pies.

  
The now, however, was shattered prematurely.

  
After five of the seven pizzas were totally demolished, and the waitress dropped off the check at their table, one of the sleek black vans drove past them. As usual, it slowed itself to a crawl, passing them at a snail’s pace before picking up speed and driving away. Despite being a warm, early autumn night, all four boys felt like somebody had just dropped a bucket of ice water down their shirts.

  
“Oh mannnnnn…” Todd shivered. “I HATE those things. ‘S like they’re followin’ us”

  
Fred stared off in the direction the van headed off to. He’d never noticed the vans in this part of town before, though certainly he’d seen them in areas where mutants tended to gather in larger numbers. The vans frequently passed by the boarding house, the park, the mall, and occasionally even the x-freak house, but it was unusual for them to show up in an area like this. Maybe his little buddy was right. Maybe the vans WERE following them. The older boy shook his head vigorously, as if to physically shake the unsettling thoughts out from between his ears. He couldn’t think like that. There was absolutely no proof that –

  
The soft thud of a crumpled body hitting the pavement shoved all other thoughts from Fred’s head.

  
Pietro was down, his frail body splayed out on the pavement in a sorry heap. A small dart stuck out of his neck, a horrifying explanation for his sudden loss of consciousness.

  
“It’s an ambush!” Lance shouted, as a dart whizzed past his cheek, barely scraping the skin. He rolled his eyes to the back of his head and summoned a roiling earthquake “Freddy, grab Pietro and get to the jeep! C’mon, Todd, lets GO!”

  
The amphibious mutant didn’t need to be told twice. Todd squealed in horror as more darts whizzed past them, thankful that Lance’s powerful quakes threw off the accuracy of whoever was attacking them. He flung himself from car to car, in a mad dash toward their getaway vehicle. He probably would have made it too, if not for one of the nasty little darts that found it’s home firmly in his left calf muscle. He never stood a chance, and he too collapsed weakly to the ground.

  
Fred stampeded past screaming bystanders, not losing momentum even as he scooped up his two fallen friends. A sharp twinge shot up his back, then another, and another after that. Fred didn’t care. It would take more than that to bring down The Blob. He crashed through a chain-link fence, the only barrier between the street and the small parking lot where the jeep was parked. Two more darts found homes in his broad back. A third punctured his arm, and a fourth buried itself in his neck. He was almost there…

  
A sudden lack of earthquakes meant that Lance was down. Fred dumped his two friends haphazardly into the jeep, and started to make his way back to grab him. Two more darts pumped their payload under his skin, and Fred could feel himself falling forward to the ground. No! It couldn’t end like this! He had to get up, had to save them, had to do something – ANYTHING! His legs refused to listen to him, and his arms twitched uselessly as he tried to force his body to obey his commands.

  
A huge armored truck roared around the corner, screeching to a halt in the middle of the street. Black armored thugs hopped out, and made quick work of dispersing the crowd. Two of them stopped to haul Lance’s limp form up off the ground, roughly snapping a wide collar around his neck before throwing him into the back of the truck.

  
Five more men in body armor jogged over to the jeep. Fred struggled in vain to force himself up, pained grunts escaping him as his vision started to grow foggy.

  
They pulled Pietro and Todd out of the vehicle, outfitting the two with collars identical to the one on Lance. Then, they too were tossed unceremoniously into the back of the truck.

  
“What are we gonna do about tubby here?” One of the black armored men rested his foot on the top of Fred’s head. Shame and rage coursed through the large boy’s veins as he found his body unwilling to move, unable to fight back. “There’s no way he’s going to fit in the truck, not with all the others in there.”

  
“We could leave ‘em. Have the boss send up another transport vehicle.”

  
“Yeah, a BIG one!”

  
A chorus of laughter rang out, and his blood began to boil. Fred hated it when people laughed at him, hated their judgement of him, of his size or his intelligence. Adrenaline flooded his system, sharpening his senses and beginning to throw off the effects of the drugs. He pushed through the fog in his mind, focused on his hand and willed it to move toward the boot resting menacingly on his head.

  
“H-holy shit!” the man squawked, as a beefy hand grabbed his ankle and tossed him aside like a ragdoll. The Blob struggled to his hands and knees, yelling out slurred words incompressible to anybody other than himself. A volley of darts peppered his skin again, and his left arm refused to support his weight once more. Fred toppled over once more. Words filtered through his ears dreamily, as though he were listening through an open window to a conversation that wasn’t meant for him. His eyelids felt far too heavy for his liking.

  
“Yeah, get the boss to call up another transport. Ain’t no way we’re risking putting this thing in close quarters with the rest of them. And check to see if they’ve got an extra-jumbo sized inhibitor collar.”  
“Shit, I can’t believe it’s still moving. I mean, that’s a big fuckin’ mutie, but we pumped enough happy juice in ‘em to kill a goddamn whale.”

  
“Yeah, well. A little ‘extra’ might be in order, just in case.”

  
Though he couldn’t see what was going on anymore, the telltale burning sensation told Fred that he’d been injected with something, something strong. Words and colors melted in a sea of nausea as he slipped into unconsciousness. A single thought flickered through his head as he drowned in his own mind.

  
_I… I wasn’t strong enough…_


	2. Awake

“Fred?”

“Fred, can you hear me?”

A soothing voice echoed in his head, the words softly floating in his ears in a bizarre dreamlike way. It was comforting, like the voice of an angel. Brief snippets of the ambush danced on the edge of his consciousness. Perhaps he was dead, Fred mused, and this is why an angel was talking to him.

“Fred, we need you to wake up… It’s me, Jean.”

Jean?

His heart skipped a beat. If the voice he was hearing was Jean, he really was dead – and had apparently been villainous enough to have been sent straight to hell.

More sounds came to his attention – the blip of a heartbeat monitor, the humming and whirring of various computers, and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights. It was some sort of a hospital, or it at least SOUNDED like one. Fred struggled to open his eyes. They refused to budge. So too did the rest of his body. He remembered the darts that had peppered his skin, and with a sickening jolt, the little “extra” that had been injected into him as well.

Another voice, deeper and more reassuring. It reminded him almost his old science teacher, the one who disappeared after the school had been wrecked one time.

“I’m sure he’s conscious, but it would seem that the reversal hasn’t had enough time to work its way through his system yet. He may not be able to move, or even speak for quite some time.” The disembodied voice sighed. “I’m afraid to give him anything more until I know how his body will process what we’ve already given him.”

A familiar snarl. A bone chilling SNIKT. Wolverine? Oh god, this really was hell. He was going to pay for every bad thing he’d ever done in his life, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“When I get my hands on those fuckers I am going to tear them a new – “

“Hold off on that thought for now, Logan.” A new voice, cultured and calm. It was familiar… If Jean was here, and Wolverine too, then could this be Professor Xavier? Was this the X-Freak house? Just his luck – Satan knew exactly where to send him for maximum suffering. “If you’re sure Mr. Dukes is conscious; I can attempt to contact him telepathically.”

“Yes, he’s definitely conscious in there. Despite the lack of response, his vitals and brainwave patterns are consistent with that of a conscious person.”

Oh god DAMMIT. He didn’t want to talk to the head X-Freak. He didn’t want to be there, trapped within his own mind, with no way to get out and no way to go home. He wanted to wake up from this hellish nightmare, to open his eyes and find himself sprawled out in their dilapidated backyard, with nothing more than a wicked sunburn as a reminder to never try sunbathing again.

 _Good evening, Mr. Dukes._ The crisp tone of voice reverberated in his skull. Telepathy was the creepiest thing, and fear flowed freely in his mind. _Ah, I see we have much to talk about. I trust you know why you are here?_

Truthfully he didn’t. A confused jumble of images and feelings swirled around inside him, and Fred simply tried to hang on tight while the professor tried to sort through them. Images of the black vans creeping past them, of the pizza place, and the horrifying sight of Pietro sprawled out on the floor unmoving. The panic of watching helplessly as Todd crashed face first into a car after being nailed with a tranquilizer, and Lance being manhandled by armored thugs. The anger and shame of a booted foot pressed on his head while a group of people laughed at him. The burn of the “something extra” and the awful nausea while he lost consciousness. These things whipped around inside his head like a maelstrom, threatening to tear him right out of reality. It was sickening and all the boy really wanted it to do was stop. STOP!

 _It's alright Fred, your ordeal is over._ The Professor’s voice overcame the tide of awfulness still churning inside him. _You’ve been through an awful experience, but it is indeed over. You are safe now, at the Institute. Mr. McCoy is attempting to reverse the effects of the paralytic drugs as we speak. Believe me when I say that we are going to find out who did this to you, and we are going to locate your friends._

Locate them? They weren’t here? Lance and Todd and Pietro, they hadn’t been rescued? Fred felt sick to his stomach again.

A telepathic sigh rang in his head. _No, I am afraid we were unable to stop the truck from driving away with your friends, and the other kidnapped mutants. In fact, we were lucky to have been able to rescue you at all. It seems that they used the majority of their sedatives to subdue you, and thus were not able to take down Logan. Once they realized this, those armored men left quickly, and did not return to the scene of the abduction._

The sick feeling intensified. If he was here, and his friends were somewhere else… His heart started hammering wildly in his chest. Where could they be? When would he see them again? What if something bad was happening to them? Why wasn’t he able to have saved them?

_Please, Fred, I know this is a very difficult time for you, but I need you to remain calm. It is imperative that you rest while you are recovering from the effects of those sedatives._

The professor’s words were a hollow comfort. Remain calm? How could he remain calm? It just wasn’t possible! There were things to do, people to rescue, and vengeance to be had. Fred struggled to open his eyes. For a brief second, they obeyed him, a bright white light searing into his skull before his eyelids slid shut again, unwilling to continue. His arms stubbornly lay limp at his side, and his legs didn’t even seem to exist when he tried to tell them what to do. It was the worst feeling he’d ever experienced.

Professor Xavier send him another message. I _can tell this isn’t going to be an easy task for you, so for now, please allow me to put you into a restful sleep while you recover. Your body is very strong, but it isn’t indestructible. The last thing you need is to have a heart attack right now._

There was no point in fighting it. Fred send a wordless acceptance to the professor, a surrender to the sweet escape of a dreamless sleep.  

 

 

_And I **still** wasn’t strong enough…_


	3. Introductions

Sleep tends to have the wonderful side effect of making large problems seem much smaller when you awaken. Unfortunately, even if Fred’s problems were the size of an impossible mountain range before, they were still the size of a slightly smaller impossible mountain range after a full night’s sleep.

He awoke late the next morning to the sterile infirmary at the Xavier Institute. Not much had changed since the night before – the sounds of beeping, buzzing, and whirring were still the same, the scent of antiseptic still hung in the air like a dense fog, and the overwhelming feeling of otherness still smothered him every second he had to spend in the wretched place. Really the only difference now seemed to be the lack of other people. It was a welcome change.

The huge mutant swung his legs over the side of the bed, the metal frame groaning under his weight. Whatever had kept him trapped inside his own head last night would seem to finally have lost the battle to keep him there. Fred stood up, and then promptly fell on his face again, swearing loudly. He floundered around on the floor, trying to stand up. The cold linoleum floors slid under his palms, taunting him of his inability to regain his sense of balance.

The noise summoned a small crowd of people. How was it that many people could come out of the woodwork in such a silent place?

“OK, OK, I need everybody to back it up, and give our guest some room.” The voice was the same one from last night, the one that sounded like his old science teacher. But it sure didn’t LOOK like his old teacher. Fred knew he would have remembered if any of his teachers looked like a giant blue gorilla. “It’s alright now, c’mon, up you go.”

A large blue hand was offered to him, and it was accepted gratefully. Slowly he got to his feet, swaying unsteadily as the room lurched around him and the floor seemed to buckle under his every step. Fred wondered vaguely if this is what it felt like to get drunk, and then promptly promised himself he would never find out.

“Now, you might still feel a little dizzy from what happened last night. That’s to be expected. Your slow metabolism means that any substances that get put into you take a long time to get out. Best just to take it slow today, and wait for any news from Logan. He’s been working nonstop to get to the bottom of this.”

Everybody else in the infirmary stood off to the side, watching him curiously. Fred felt like he was back to being the strongman in a freak show. He tried to glare daggers in their general direction, but his heart just wasn’t in it. A disgruntled glower was the best he could manage. Despite having slept all night, he was still tired. Exhausted, even. With a sigh of resignation, he sat back down on the infirmary bed.

“So… This Logan guy.” He said at last, rubbing his face in his hands. “He’s good right? He’ll be able to find them?”

Everybody in the room seemed snigger, or at last choke back a giggle. Even the kind blue doctor chuckled a little bit. It made Fred feel stupid for having opened his mouth and he frowned.

“Is he any good? Well… I’ll let his reputation be the judge of that. I’m sure you’ve heard of Wolverine.”

“Yeah, so?”

A small female voice, gentle as a fairy’s, piped up from the still growing throng of people. “Mr. Logan IS Wolverine. If anybody can find the missin’ folks, it’d be him.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the group. Then, a dark skinned boy stepped forward. He glanced around at the rest of the occupants, and then spoke. His voice was strained and tired, and it sounded much like Fred felt.

“Trust me, we have a vested interest in finding all the mutants who disappeared. You weren’t the only one who lost friends last night. Those creeps kidnapped Ray and Sam and Jubilee too. You might not know who they are, or care that they’ve been taken, but – “

“Let me help you.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, though he didn’t regret saying them. It was true that he had never heard of Ray or Sam or Jubilee, but from the way the boy in front of him sounded, they were people who had been loved and cared about. They were just as important to the X-Freaks as Lance, and Todd and Pietro were to him. Nobody deserved to lose family like that. “Just… Just tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it.”

The atmosphere in the room changed visibly. Instead of curious faces and mocking distain, there were now looks of relief and acceptance. The boy extended his hand in welcome.

"I can’t speak for the Professor, or any of the other teachers here, but if they’re willing to accept your help, I’d be glad to work with you. My name is Roberto,” He gestured to the rest of the group. “And this is Rahne, Bobby, Amara, and uh, a whole lot of Jamie.”

Each of the kids gave a small wave and some sort of a hello. After really getting a good look at the crowd, it was now easy to see why there seemed to be so many people in the room – every time somebody bumped into “Jamie”, one or two more of him would pop out. It was sort of a relief, in a way, that it wasn’t just a huge crowd come to stare at him.

“I’m sure Charles would be glad of all the help he can get,” said the doctor, a warm smile on his face. “Er, though you probably know him more so as Professor Xavier. I’m Mr.McCoy – I remember you from science class. I have to say, you made quite the impression on the school’s supply of Bunsen burners that one time.”

“No way! You’re _that_ Mr.McCoy? What happened to you?”

A rueful smile crossed his lips as he busied himself shuffling papers around. “I’m afraid I grew too dependent on a serum used to control certain aspects of my mutation. Let my folly be a lesson to you. There can be no shortcuts when it comes to our lives. If you’re going to do something, do it with hard work and perseverance. Otherwise you wind up naked in the middle of a forest somewhere with a splitting headache, and covered in raccoon blood.”

Fred started at him in horror, but his old teacher only laughed.

“I kid, I kid. That only ever happened once, and I’m pretty sure there were things at play other than my control serum.”

 

= = = = = = = = = = = =

 

By lunch time, the last of drugs had finally disappeared from his system, and Fred realized how hungry he was. After all, he hadn’t eaten anything since the pizza from the night before, and even then he hadn’t been all that full. It had been a long time since he’d been this long without a meal. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

The fairy-sounding girl, Rahne, gave him a brief tour of the mansion. He didn’t much see the point of it. After all, if Wolverine was tracking the black vans, his stay would only be for a day or two. Three days MAX. The guy was a legend! There was no way he would need to visit the garage, or the danger room, or the Professor’s office. That sort of stuff was only for people who intended to make the Institute their home. The only places Fred really needed to know about, in his opinion, were the kitchen, the bathroom, and the way back to the infirmary.

_BAMF_

The familiar smell of sulfur wafted through the hallway as Kurt teleported in. He looked around nervously, as though somebody was going to pop up and try to sell him something. “Leesin, try to stay away from ze kitchen! Kitty has been vorried sick about Lance, and started baking again – If you see her, just remember, you didn’t see me!”

And with that warning, the teleporter vanished in a puff of smoke.

“An’ tha’s our cue ta make ourselves scarce” Rahne said, grabbing the hem of Fred’s overalls and attempting to pull him down the hallway, “Trust me, ye do NAE want to be around when Kitty gets it in ‘er head ta start cooking.”

“Is it really that bad? I mean, yeah, sure, Lance rags on her all the time for being a terrible cook, but I bet it’s nothing I couldn’t handle. And besides… I’m starving.”

“If ye think yer brave enough, then go ahead. It’s yer funeral.” She stopped trying to move the unmovable, and faced him, shaking her head. “But if ye value yer life, stay awa’ from th’ kitchen.”

“Aw, don’t worry about me,” Fred patted his stomach. “If I can eat the garbage Todd makes and not get sick, there’s no way I’ll kick the bucket with whatever Kitty does. I’ve got a cast-iron stomach!”

Rahne rolled her eyes. “Suit yerself. But a’m warnin’ ye now – cast iron or nae, _nobody’_ s belly is strong enough to survive the torture session tha’ is Kitty’s cooking.”

"Oh yeah? Just try me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy balls this was a slog to get through, and there isn't even that much of it. I'm not terribly happy with how this portion turned out, but at least now that Fred's in the mansion and awake, I can finally have him interacting with the rest of the cast and doing shit. Future chapters should be much more interesting. Up next - adventures of Lance and company.


	4. In the Facility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some OC business is bound to happen in a location where there are supposed to be over a thousand other mutants. Really the only ones that make any kind impact on the storyline are Jacket Kid and Texstyle. Everybody else is just for flavor. TBH when I'm writing a story with canon characters, I like to stay focused on canon characters, so I promise that their involvement in the story is pretty minimal for this story.

A dull throbbing headache was the first sensation that Lance Alvers became aware of when he woke up. It reverberated in his skull with every beat of his heart, and reminded him of when he was first learning to control his powers. Those were bad times. This? This was also probably a bad time.

He sat up slowly, holding his head, and trying to make sense of his location. His eyes wouldn’t focus, hell, he wasn’t even sure if they were totally open. Wherever he was, it was damp, dark, and cold. And, oh goody, it was also a cage. He leaned back, solid metal bars pressing into his shoulders, and groaned. This sucks. What the fuck happened?

“Hey hey hey! Well good morning sleeping beauty! It’s about damn time you woke up. Yer friends were starting to get a little worried.”

Lance cracked open one eye. Another set of bars set a few feet away from him housed a guy he didn’t know. He grunted a vague acknowledgement, and glanced around. By now, his eyes had finally decided to listen to him, and start filtering his surroundings into his brain. Not that it helped much. This place was a fucking shithole, and something told him things were only going to get worse.

It was a warehouse of sorts, stuffed to the gills with people in too small cages, just like his. If the things were five feet by five feet he’d consider himself lucky. Maybe there were three feet in between each cage. It was a good thing the bars went up to the ceiling, or he might have started to feel claustrophobic.

To his north Pietro stopped pacing long enough to grip the bars and exhale in relief. “Oh, oh thank goodness. You- You’re awake! Lance, you’ve been out for so long, I didn’t think you were ever going to wake up and Todd’s sick and I’m not feeling so hot myself and we don’t know where we are or what we’re doing he-“

“Pietro! Stop. Just. Just stop. For a second. Please. I’m… I’m not all fully here yet.” The shaggy haired boy slowly slid himself up the bars into a standing position, not fully trusting his legs to keep him upright. “Urgh… whatever that stuff was they shot us with, it sure kicked the shit out of me.”

“Psh. You and everybody else here.” This came from another teenaged boy, to his southeast. Or at least, he thought it was southeast. He was judging Pietro to be north solely by the fact that he was butted up against a wall. Todd was next to him – that’d be northeast. The guy who told him good morning would be regular east. To the south was an unidentifiable lump of dark colored fabric, while the southwest cage held a burly guy who was sobbing uncontrollably into his knees. In the west, a blonde girl was snoring loudly, and in the northwest a dark skinned boy was half way up to the ceiling, attempting to find some flaw in their captivity.

And those were just the people immediately surrounding him. Goddammit, there were a LOT of people here he didn’t know.

Lance exhaled slowly, and faced his speedster friend. “Ok. Now, I need you to tell me slowly. What the hell did I miss?”

Pietro took a shaky breath. Going slow wasn’t exactly his thing. “Right. So this place, it’s run by some kind of muntant hunters. They – they went around the state and collect a TON of other mutants. There’s literally hundreds of us here. Maybe even thousands. They’ve got some kind of wide range power inhibitor, but whatever it is, I don’t think it fully blocks all aspects of our powers. I can’t use my super speed, but my mind is still going way too fast for anybody to consider it normal. It’s the strangest feeling, like I can feel what parts of me are going normal time, and what ones are still on Quicksilver time. I… I don’t like it.”

He gestured over to the enclosure next to him, where Todd was sitting on the floor. His knees were drawn up to his chest, and he was breathing heavily. The silver haired boy continued. “Whatever they’re using looks like it’s affecting people with physical mutations more than the rest of us. Todd looks like shit, I watched them drag three unconscious kids past here, and I’m not even sure THAT thing is still alive!”

He pointed to the lump to the south. It was suspiciously motionless.

“Naw, that’s just Jacket Kid. He don’t say much.” The boy to Lance’s east piped up. “He’s fine. Watch. Hey – hey Jacket Kid. You still alive in there? Let these guys know you’re not dead. Sleeping Beauty finally woke up, and he wants to make sure he’s not rooming with a corpse.”

The lump shifted a bit, and upon closer inspection, it appeared that the fabric was in fact a Freddy-sized coat on a Kitty-sized wearer. A tiny hand popped out of an enormous sleeve, and flipped them the bird.

“See? Jacket Kid is fine. How about you? You feeling any worse for the wear Sleeping Beauty?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Would you stop calling me that? And mind your own business. I’m fine.”

“Texstyle doesn’t know how to mind his own business. He thinks it’s his job to know who everybody is.” Pietro said, pressing his face into the bars, and allowing his arms to hang limply in front of him. “That’s the other thing you missed. Introductions.”

“Fantastic. Well? Is there anybody here who might be able to get us out?”

“Probably not. It’s not like I’ve seen them manhandling any X-men or anything like that.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t get too riled up. Like your friend said, there’s an assload of people here. That means there’s bound to be an assload of people out in world who realize that we’ve all been kidnapped. I’m sure SOMEBODY will find us.” Texstyle grinned, and gestured around. “Shit, Randal’s folks like him, and Audial, Vigora, and GelaTim all have friends who escaped.”

“Could you not fucking call me that, asshole?” Somebody on the other side of Texstyle called out. “GelaTim is a stupid name, and I hate it.”

“Yeah well, while we’re here, we either have Mutant names, or we have numbers. Take your pick.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lance asked, “Codenames or numbers? What are they even playing at?”

“Dehumanizing us.” Pietro said quietly. “They don’t want to think of us as being ‘people’, because if we’re ‘people’, then hurting us suddenly becomes unacceptable. It’s easier to swallow if we’re numbered test subjects or codenamed super freaks.”

“So? What’s it going to be?” Texstyle asked, “Are you a number, or do you have a name?”

“You can call me Avalanche. I make earthquakes. What can you do?”

_ _ _ _ _

 

Over the next several hours, Lance received the rundown of his fellow inmates. Names. Powersets. Family ties if there were any left. Not that he was going to be able to remember all of it. There were over 300 people in their location alone, and it sounded like they were just the teenagers. The adults and small children were being kept someplace else in the building.

He was relieved to find out that there WERE some of Xavier’s students trapped here with them, even if they weren’t names he easily recognized. With that being the case, a decent rescue mission was almost guaranteed to occur. He wondered briefly if Fred and Wanda were ok. Wanda hadn’t been with them during the kidnapping, so she was probably fine. But Fred was definitely there and Lance had seen him get nailed with several sedation darts with his own eyes before going down himself. He could only hope that the “Unmovable Blob” was still a thing even if he was unconscious. With any luck, SOMEBODY would be able to find them, and break them out.

Somewhere in between learning about Soaker and Dramatikos, the lights turned on. It was easier to see now, and that didn’t help matters one bit. All around him were kids his own age, and younger. They were sick, and scared, and crammed into cages like animals. Lance got a good look at Todd for the first time. The boy looked greener than usual, and not in a good way. It made his stomach churn uncomfortably.

A man’s voice came out from the ceiling, cheap speakers making it sound tinny and insignificant. Something told the earth shaker it was anything but.

“Good morning freaks. I trust you all slept well last night?”

The morning babble slowly died down as people strained to listen, hopeful that they would be given some explanation for having been ripped from their homes and tossed into a warehouse like animals.

“If you turn your attention to any of the walls, you’ll find a video feed of our morning introductions. If we have instructions for you, they will be displayed here as well. When you see these screens turn on, you will find it to be in your best interest to pay attention.”

On cue, the walls around the room lit up. The man’s voice was given a face. It was lean and hungry, with dark hair and darker eyes. It was the face of a man who knew full well he’d just rounded up a group of innocent people, and fully intended to punish them for having done nothing wrong.

“Though each one of you may believe yourself to be a perfectly harmless creature, I know better. I know full well that every last one of you abominations is capable of destruction the likes of which the world has never known, if only given the proper application of your ahem abilities.” There was a manic glint in his eyes, and the man’s voice grew hard and labored. “Thus, there is not a single individual who should feel surprised when I tell you that not one of you mutants will be leaving this facility. Not alive. Not in a body bag. Not. Ever. We are going to get to the bottom of this recent surge in your kind’s population. And, god willing, we will figure out a way to prevent more of you from ever existing.”

The room burst into frightened muttering.

“Now… All of you freaks are to stand up for the morning review, and cooperate for our little census. Those of you who do NOT cooperate will find that your lives are made that much harder. We have ways of getting you to behave.”

The screens cut out, plunging the room into a flurry of conversation. Snippets wafted past Lance’s ears.

“Never leaving?” “… Abominations…” “Can you believe…” “I hope my mom’s OK” “What’s gonnna happen?” “How can he do this?” “We’re not…” “I don’t wanna die!” “What are we going to do?”

It was the desperation in the last one that caught his attention, and it steeled his resolve.

“Alright everybody, listen up!” Lance boomed. “This is some bullshit, and there is no way we’re going to let them get away with it!”

The noise died down, and suddenly all eyes were on him. Holy shit, it was so much worse when he had to come up with a plan on the fly. Lance swallowed thickly and continued, drawing upon his experience in motivating his own team.

“Now look! Just because we don’t have our powers, doesn’t mean we can’t fight back! I know you’re scared, and these guys look tough. But there’s WAY more of us then there are of them. We have to let them know that we aren’t just going to roll over and take it!”

There was a rippling murmur of agreement throughout the building. Hope was starting to return to the previously dejected faces of the prisoners. Maybe there really was something to this whole ‘motivational speech’ bullshit that Summers was so fond of.

“So this is what we’re going to do -!”

“What you are going to do, young man, is shut your fool mouth, and cooperate.” The man from the screen strode down the aisles, along with several armored bodyguards, and turned sharply on his heel to face Lance. “I will not be having any uprisings in my facility.”

“Oh yeah? Well I won’t be staying in this fucking ‘facility’! And neither will anybody else!”

The man raked over his prisoner with his eyes, and they narrowed. “You… I know you! You’re Avalanche - one of those awful Brotherhood Mutants! And… And that one! That would be Quicksilver! And the Toad! But… We seem to be two short. What happened to Tubby, and that Red Bitch?”

“It’s the Scarlet Witch!” Lance snarled, “And your goons didn’t manage to catch her. Those losers fucked up in catching the Blob too! They’ll find us. They’ll find all of us, and stage a breakout. You fuck heads won’t know what happened once we get through teaching you a lesson!”

He knew he was bluffing, and bluffing hard and Lance quietly hoped that nobody called him out on it. Truth be told, he had no way of knowing if Fred and Wanda had managed to evade capture. It could very well be that they hadn’t, and were simply being held in a different area.

The man in charge, however, didn’t disagree with the rock tumbler’s assessment. Indeed, the remarks must have hit a raw nerve, because he leaned in closer to the enclosure, and whispered. “If it’s lesson teaching you want, it is lesson teaching you shall have.”

He pulled out a remote control from inside his coat pocket, his fingers deftly pressing a series of buttons. The bars surrounding Lance smoothly raised into the ceiling, and suddenly he found himself flanked by thugs on all sides. He glanced around, looking for a way out and finding none. The wall screens were plastered with video feed of the events to come.

“Attention mutants! What you are about to witness is an EXAMPLE. A mere TASTE of what will come should you be disobedient and contrarian.”

Two armored men made to grab their captive, only for one of them to be rewarded with a fist to the face. Lance grimaced as his hand made contact with the protective goggles, but continued to fight anyway. Somebody seized him by the left wrist, and yanked down hard. He pivoted, and sent a right hook in their direction. It missed its target by a mile, and the earth shaker gasped as a booted foot planted itself squarely in his gut.

Lance considered himself to be a fairly proficient fighter. After all, his powers hadn’t manifested until well after he’d hit puberty, and he’d been riff raff for many years before that. And, while it was true that he relied on his abilities to the point of them becoming an instinct like seeing or breathing, it wasn’t unheard of for him to use his fists when the time came. Goodness knows he’d decked a few X-Freaks in his day.

But the X-Men fought fairly, and honorably. They fought one on one, or two on one if they felt like fighting dirty for once. And once they had their opponent on the ground, the X-Men always stopped fighting. They never kicked a guy when he was down.

These men? They were not the X-Men.

They came on to him five against one. Strong hands pinned his arms behind his back, while punches and kicks rained down on his front. A split lip. A black eye. Ugly purple bruises littered his face, chest and stomach. Pietro and Todd screamed for them to stop – he was going to die if the onslaught continued.

It continued anyway.

For ten long minutes they beat the shit out of him. By minute four, Lance couldn’t stand. By minute six, he found his eyes would no longer stay open due to the swelling. It was only when he was teetering on the edge of consciousness that they stopped thoroughly thrashing him. One of the thugs picked up Lance’s now-limp body and tossed it against one of the other cages. He was vaguely aware of hearing quiet sobbing behind him as he blacked out.

“Now I do believe that there is a very famous saying – it’s quite popular on fridge magnets and bumper stickers. It reads ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’. I certainly hope you freaks have learned your lesson vicariously, because this is exactly what you will receive and then some should you decide to defy me.”

The man in charge strolled over to the beaten mutant, and knelt down beside him, his lips stretched into a snarl. “You may think you and your little friends are strong enough to pull off a rescue mission. My advice to you is to give it up. I assure you –“

“You”

“Are.”

“Not.”


	5. Kitchen Chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been playing this particular scene in my head ever since I got the idea for this story. I don't know that I've exactly captured the feeling I want for it, as I usually pictured more of a montage in my head when it was still swirling around in there, but I did my best. I might wind up rephrasing a few places, but the overall feeling should be the same.

The kitchen was deserted when Rahne and Fred arrived. For those who lived at the Institute, it was pretty clear to see why – the unwashed dishes in the sink, and splotches of ingredients littered all over the place were a telltale sign that Kitty had been the last to use it.

“OK, this is where ah leave ye. Ah am nae goin’ tae stick aroun an’ wait fer Kitty tae come back.” Rahne said, glancing over her shoulder.

The huge boy snickered. “Whatsa matter? Afraid Kitty’s gonna pop up and force feed you some shitty cupcakes?”

“No. Wha’ she does is much, much worse.” The shapeshifter grimaced as she headed out the kitchen door. “She’ll pop up and GUILT ye inta eatin’ terrible cupcakes. Leftover’s in tha fridge. Help yerself.”

With that, the small girl transformed into her wolf form and made a mad dash for someplace, anyplace, that wasn’t the kitchen. Fred shrugged his shoulders and lumbered over to the fridge. The boardinghouse didn’t usually have leftovers, and he had a hard time imagining that a place with as many people as the X-Mansion could wind up having them.

But lo and behold, it DID. The cavernous refrigerator was nothing short of a miracle to his eyes. It was loaded with food. Most of it seemed to be ingredients – milk, eggs, juice, and veggies, but there were a few containers of leftovers that he could spy. He pushed past a prepackaged smoothie bottle with a sticky note that read “ROGUE’S STASH – TOUCH THIS AND DIE”, and pulled out some leftover Chinese food. This didn’t have any notes on it, and he assumed it was fair game. And if it wasn’t, his tour guide shouldn’t have told him to help himself.

“Like, Fred! You’re awake! This is SUCH great timing!” The bubbly voice of Kitty Pryde rang through the kitchen. Fred rolled his eyes, knowing full well what she was looking for. “I’ve totally looked all over the mansion, and can’t seem to find, like, anybody! But I bet you’ll help me – I just need you to tell me which one of these muffin batches are better!”

And there it was… Kitty was holding up two plates of nondescript baked goods and looking at him as though it were the most natural thing in the world to find one of your enemies hanging out in your kitchen and eating your leftover Chinese food. He shrugged his shoulders and took a muffin off each plate. He popped one in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully before swallowing.

“And? How is it?” Her hopeful anxiousness was almost cute.

“Disgusting” The reply was short and honest, and he repeated the process for the second muffin. It was somehow worse than the first, and he had to force himself to swallow it. “And this one is also disgusting.”

The look of shock on Kitty’s face was palpable. She sputtered something that sounded like “Rude!” before attempting to stomp out the kitchen.

“Hey, don’t get angry at me! You asked what I thought. I told you the truth. If ya wanted me to lie to you, then you should have said so. Why do you think you can’t find anybody? I guarantee it’s ‘cause they’re all hiding from your lousy muffins.”

Kitty froze in place, and slowly pivoted on the spot. A look of pure fury was on her face. “Now you listen here Blob – I worked really hard on these things! It took me forever to get the recipes just right! And you’re going to stand there and tell me that all my hard work is for nothing? That they’re garbage? What, should I just throw them away if they’re so terrible?”

There was a venom in her voice that wasn’t normally there. Most of inhabitants of the mansion would have fled long before kitty finished her little tirade, but Fred lived with Wanda. And an angry Wanda was the most terrifying thing in the world as far as he was concerned. Kitty didn’t even tip the scales.

“I didn’t say ‘Throw them out’.” He said pointedly. “I said, “They’re disgusting. There’s a difference.”

“No there isn’t!” Kitty looked like she was close to tears. She attempted to dump the two plates of muffins in the trash when a huge hand grabbed one and set it on the counter.

“Stop that. I just said I didn’t tell you to throw them out.”

“Why not? It’s not like anybody’s going to eat them! You said it yourself, they’re disgusting!”

Fred rolled his eyes again, and proceeded to dump half the plate of muffins in his mouth, demolishing them in a matter of seconds.

Kitty stared at him in shock. “Wh – what did you do THAT for? I thought you hated them!”

“Yeah, I do. They’re really gross. But you don’t waste food.” He finished off the rest of the muffin plate in the same manner as the first half. “It’s kind of a big deal for me.”

“Yeah, but…” The small girl goggled at him as though she’d never seen anybody eat that much of her cooking in one sitting before.

“But nothing. You don’t waste food.” He repeated. “When you have a mutation like mine, where you need to eat, you can’t afford to be picky. Especially when you’re always broke, and you never know if there’s gonna be enough for everybody. You don’t waste food.”

Kitty stopped protesting as watched him plow through the second plate of muffins with a pained expression on his face.

“Ugh, those are really, really bad. What recipe did you even USE?”

“Just the one on the back of the bag of flour…” Kitty began, “But like, I might have just tweaked it a little.”

The look on Fred’s face made it clear that he didn’t believe that a “little” tweaking could have produced such inedible slop. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, and crossed his arms in the closest impersonation of Lance’s ‘You’re bullshitting me right now face’ that he could muster. “Uh huh.”

“Like, HONEST! I only swapped out a few things! You know, apple sauce instead of oil, chia seeds instead of eggs, bananas instead of sugar… oh! And I also substituted half the flour with black beans!”

The Lance impression fell from his face, and was replaced with a look of revulsion. “You can’t swap out that much stuff! No wonder it tastes like garbage!”

“They didn’t taste like garbage – you ate two plates full of them!”

“Uh, yea. They did. I’m got gonna argue with you on that point. Ya can’t just decide to change everything in a recipe and then think it’s gonna stay the same”

"People make substitutions all the time!”

“Yeah, for ONE thing. You can change ONE thing, and still call it the same. If I order a pizza, and ask them to use sausage instead of pepperoni, it’s still a pizza. If I order a pizza and ask them to load it with beef, and use American cheese, and hold the sauce, and use a roll instead of a pizza crust, It’s not a pizza anymore. It’s a hamburger.”

He grabbed the half-empty bag of flour and held it up to her face. “Tell me where on this thing you see to use apple sauce.”

Kitty’s face tinged pink. “Well… it doesn’t exactly say that.”

“Ok, so where does it say to use any of that other crap?”

“It wasn’t crap!”

“Where does it say to use it?” he repeated, with the tone of voice that one might use to explain something to a particularly distraught child.

“It – It doesn’t.”

“OK, so what you’re gonna do is read off the ingredients, EXACTLY as it says on the bag.” Fred pulled the mixing bowl out of the sink and gave it a quick wash. “Then, once you have everything out, you read off how it’s s’posta be mixed. And then you only cook it for exactly how long it’s s’posta be cooked for.”

Grumbling, Kitty gathered every single item on the list, and set it aside on one of the counters while Fred cleared a space for them to work. With the two of them working in odd tandem, it didn’t take too long before the surprisingly appetizing scent of cinnamon apple muffins started wafting through the whole mansion. Several times, it sounded as though somebody wanted to come into the kitchen and investigate the source of the delicious aroma, but every time footsteps drew close, there was a gasp or a horrified squeak before the footsteps retreated.

It was the arrival of the nightcrawler who put that mystery to rest. He teleported into the kitchen in front of the oven, and stared into it hungrily.

“Oh man… I don’t know who kicked Kitty out of ze kitchen, but whoever zey are I think I might just kiss zem. Zose smell amazing!”

“Like, nobody kicked me out of the kitchen Kurt!” Kitty snapped, her annoyance with her fuzzy teammate tempered only slightly by his mortified squawk as he tripped over his own tail and tried to apologize to her. “For your information, I made those ones too!”

Fred snickered as he polished off the rest of the Chinese food he’d been working on, and Kitty softened herself a bit before adding. “Well… I guess I did have some help”

As it turned out, when Kitty actually used a proper recipe, she was a pretty good baker. The apple filled muffins flew out of the kitchen almost just as quickly as they could be baked off, with everybody declaring them not only edible, but in fact quite tasty. When the last of the pans came out of the oven, it was drawing near the end of the afternoon. The brunette girl sighed, and looked around at the trashed room.

“Augh… Well I hadn’t been planning on spending literally all day here, but I guess since it is getting late, I may as well start on dinner. Kinda wishing I traded with Scott for laundry right about now. And I HATE doing laundry.”

“What were you planning on making?”

“Oh, I dunno. I was thinking maybe some anchovy and jalapeno burritos, or maybe –“

“Well now you’re making spaghetti. Because I know I saw the ingredients for it in the cabinets earlier.” Fred cut her off hastily. He had an iron stomach, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed tormenting himself. Besides. Spaghetti was easy and cheap, and one of the few things he never felt guilty about when he ate enough to satisfy himself.

Kitty grinned, knowing full well that some of her meals were more ‘adventurous’ that most people were used to. It was a bit of a surprise that not even the Blob was willing to try it, but she supposed that their baking experiment that day was proof enough that maybe sometimes being adventurous wasn’t always the best course of action if you wanted to share with other people.

She pulled out some pots and pans, and watched as her former enemy put together several piles of ingredients. Cans of tomato paste and crushed tomatoes, cloves of garlic, carrots, peppers, ground beef, and some small jars of spices lay spread out on the counter, waiting to be transformed into something that other people would actually enjoy. Not at all like what she would have probably turned them into.

He passed her the carrots and a paring knife, and got to work on slicing some peppers. “So, like, did you always make food at the boarding house? Lance never really talked much about you guys, but he made it sound like you all just did your own thing, and only ever ate, like, greasy pizza.”

“Eh. If we had stuff in the house I could do it.” Fred shrugged his shoulders. It was a little disappointing to hear that his friend never mentioned the house, but he couldn’t fault Lance for that. Though it was the closest thing he’d ever had to a real family home, the boarding house was still a shitty place to live, and he probably wouldn’t want a girl he liked feeling depressed by having to hear about it. “But we don’t exactly have a fridge like yours. Full, I mean. There’s never anything in it to cook with.”

The look on the X-girl’s face told him that his reasoning was exactly why Lance didn’t talk about his home. Kitty looked uncomfortably concerned while she peeled her carrots.

“You know how to brown meat?” He asked her, once the carrots were done.

She nodded her head, and set up the frying pan. “Yeah, you just put it in the pan and like, wait till it’s not pink anymore.”

“So I gotta ask – how does somebody like you wind up bein’ such a lousy cook? I mean – it aint hard to follow a recipe. An’ yer pretty smart, right? At least Lance thinks you are.”

Kitty shot him a mock glare. The question wasn’t asked with any sort of malice behind it. It was simply the huge boy’s attempt at sating his curiosity. “Oh c’mon. I’m like, not THAT bad, am I?”

“Yeah. You are. Those muffins were terrible. If I wasn’t me, I’d probably be dead.”

The little brunette cackled with laughter. “You would SO not!”

“You keep on thinkin’ that.” He carefully squeezed a can of tomatoes with one hand, gingerly pulling the top off as it was lifted from the compression. “Seriously, have you even tried some of the stuff you make? You woulda never needed to ask me if you just tried some of your own stuff.”

She shook her head and paused, spatula in hand. “Well, if I’m being honest, I usually don’t eat my own cooking. It’s not that I don’t WANT to try it. It’s just that I try new recipes so often that I’d get fat if I did.”

Fred rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because that’s just the most awful thing in the world. Nobody here knows what that’s like. Wish I knew somebody fat I could ask to find out.”

Almost immediately Kitty realized she’d put her foot in her mouth with that comment. “No, like, that’s totally different! It’s OK for somebody like you! You’re the Blob. It’s like, who you are!”

The words, though said in sugary bubblegum tones, were no less bitter when they hit his ears. “Oh fuck off. Do I look like I’m in costume right now? I’m only “Blob” when I’m fighting, or performing. Lance doesn’t have to be “Avalanche” when he’s not in costume. Nobody calls you “Shadowcat” when you’re not in costume. Why is it that I don’t get to have a name?”

“Ok, fine, Fred then.” Kitty seemed a bit annoyed that he didn’t catch the meaning of what she had intended. “But that’s not what I meant. I meant that you’re a GUY. It’s totally OK for you to be huge. Girls don’t get to do that. If we get big, people - ”

“People stare or they ignore you. They whisper and talk behind your back. They point and make faces, call you names. They go out of their way to stay away from you, and tell you you’re not good enough, you don’t have any self-control. You think this is shit I don’t deal with?” There was a hardness to his voice that belied the strain it put on his throat. “You think I don’t KNOW?”

“Well…”

“Well nuthin’! There’s nuthin’ you can say to tell me you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. Just look at you and then look at me. You don’t have to worry about if you can fit through a doorway, or if the chair is gonna break if you sit in it, or what people are thinking every time you have to eat in public.”

“That’s not what I meant by that at all! All I was trying to say is that it’s part of your mutation – Just like shedding is part of Kurt’s, or getting seasick is part of Amara’s. You shouldn’t be ashamed of something you can’t help.”

“Oh yea? Why don’t you tell that to six year old me? Go back and tell the me who was fat before my mutation kicked in. You go back and tell him that he’s never gonna have any friends, or find somebody who thinks he deserves respect. You go tell him he’s got no chance at a love life. Just like everybody else did.” Fred grabbed the bag of onions, and a sharp knife. He tore through them with the practiced hand of a chef, leaving tiny perfect cubes in his wake, and wishing the acrid smell did a better job of hiding the real reason he was tearing up. “I didn’t pop out of my ma looking like this, ya know? I still remember that day when it kicked in, ‘cause I thought it was the best thing ever. One day I went to bed all fat and ugly, the next day I woke up and I was suddenly eight inches taller and I could rip a pine tree right outta the ground. All of a sudden people started treatin’ me better. Then the weight came back, and it was like nuthin’ ever changed. Nuthin’ ever changes.”

He was shaking now, and could feel his blood pressure steadily rising sky high. A tiny voice in the back of his mind kept shouting at him – _Don’t get mad. Don’t break anything. Don’t hurt anybody_. And he knew it was right. He knew if he let his temper get the better of him, the X-Men would kick him out of their fancy pretty mansion and stop looking for his friends. And where would he go then? Back to the boarding house? Just go and sit there like a sitting duck for the armored trucks to come back for him? Or worse, sit there in fear for them to NOT come back for him, all alone in a house with no food, no water, no electricity, and no hope for his friends to ever return.

Kitty reached out a hand to touch his elbow, her face twisted in empathetic sympathy. “Fred, I – “

“Don’t fucking touch me!” He snarled, jerking back his arm. “I know you think I’m disgusting. Everybody always thinks that. So don’t sit there and pretend like you wanna be my friend.”

“I’m sorry.” She said quietly.

“No. You’re not. You’re just sorry I pointed it out.” There was a sizzle as Fred dumped the onions and garlic in the pan to cook with the meat.

“Maybe – Maybe you might not think I’m sorry. But I am.” Kitty said, her voice quivering a little. “I just never thought about it before. I was always too busy thinking about my issues, or the ones of the people I’m closest to. So, again. I’m sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but you should at least know.”

He glared at the X girl while he finished dumping cans of tomato paste into a huge pot. He wanted to be mad at her, wanted to yell, and punch something, wanted her to be scared of him so she’d just go away. But she didn’t. She just stood there all quiet like, and didn’t flinch, even as the knife in his hand flashed menacingly with every ingredient he had to slice. So this is why Lance liked her so much.

“Whatever. S’not like it matters. Wolverine is gonna find all the missing mutants, and then I get to go home, and I never have to see yer stupid face again. So don’t bother being sorry.” It was an empty blustering defense, and it did little to help with the tight feeling in his chest. And still the little voice in his head kept repeating - _Don’t get mad. Don’t break anything. Don’t hurt anybody_.

“No.” Kitty shook her head and put her hand on his arm again, ignoring the nasty glare. What was it with girls and touchy-feely garbage anyway? “It does matter. You don’t deserve to have people treat you that way and – “

“Drop it. I don’t wanna talk about it no more. Just shut up and let me be angry about it.” He tipped the frying pan’s contents into the pot with the tomato sauce, and gave it a half hearted stir. The anger that had been bubbling up inside him was slowing down, leaving more exhaustion in it’s wake. “Let me be angry about this shit, so I don’t hafta be angry at sumthin’ else. At least I know how to make this go away.”

When there was no response, Fred chanced a look over his shoulder. Kitty wasn’t looking at him like a kicked puppy anymore. She was phasing plates and cups out of the cabinet. Nice ones – the kind that they couldn’t have ever had at the boarding house. Not with his temper, or Lance’s either for that matter. He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts of his friends. It wasn’t time to think about them. Thinking about them was only going to make him sad. And being sad only made him angry, the kind of anger he didn’t know how to make go away. It was the kind of anger that gnawed at his insides and refused to let him rest until something was broken or somebody was hurting just as much as he was. A nasty spiral, if it should happen while he was relying on outside help.

He sighed inwardly, and gave the sauce one more stir. He wouldn’t have to be here long, and with any luck Kitty would forget he’d ever talked to her today. Or at least, he hoped she’d have the decency to keep her mouth shut about his momentary lapse into feelings. In the meantime though, he’d just have to be stronger.


	6. Memories of Events Long Since Past

A dull throb steadily grew stronger in Jean’s head as she reviewed the ever growing list of names in front of her on the computer. Names, addresses, places of work, and any other valuable bits of information were presented to her in an easy to read chart format. Not that it helped much. The past two days had been a nightmare, and she couldn’t wait for this whole ordeal to be over with. She wanted life to go back to normal.

Or you know, at least as normal as life could be for super powered teenagers.

~~~

_The smell of Italian food greeted their noses as they staggered back through the mansion doors. It was a huge relief to everybody, actually, as the schedule said that Kitty was supposed to be the one cooking that night. But this didn’t smell like anything Kitty would have made._

_“I’m sorry Jean, but if that tastes as good as it smells, I’m afraid I’m going to have to propose to whoever made it.” Scott grinned at her, and she could sense the mischief in his eyes even behind his visor._

_“Well, I can’t say I’d blame you. I was half expecting calamari and wheatgrass tacos or something. I wonder if somebody switched for kitchen duty tonight.”_

_“Nope! Still me!” Kitty phased through the dining room wall holding a pair of plates laden with food. Her two teammates accepted them gratefully, not the least bit surprised by her sudden appearance. “Here, eat up. It’s really good this time, I promise”_

_They dug in. The hard day’s work had worn them down, and both Scott and Jean were never more thankful for a home cooked meal. For once, something the Shadowcat offered them tasted good. Really good._

_“Well, I hate to break it to you, but it looks like the wedding is on.”_

_Jean shot him a wry smile. “You mean you really plan on marrying whoever it was that made it?”_

_“Yeah. I’m gonna have to. You find somebody who cooks like this, and you have to wife them.” Scott picked up another forkful of spaghetti and crammed it in his mouth with gusto. “It’s written in the guy code. You should look it up some time.”_

_There was a low chuckle from the other side of the room. The two looked up, startled to realize that they weren’t alone._

_“No offense Summers, but yer not my type.”_

_Jean froze and her blood ran cold._

_It was him._

_It shouldn’t be, but it was. The professor had told her not to worry. Logan had told her that the men in the trucks had used enough tranquilizers to kill a baby whale. Mr. McCoy had told her that he’d probably be asleep until tomorrow. But still, there was the Blob sitting in their dining room._

_Though she hated to admit it, she was afraid of him. She remembered vividly the days in which the boy had stalked her. How he’d demanded her attention, and caused destruction when it didn’t come. The fight which knocked her unconscious, and waking up tied to a chair. Restrained not with ropes or twine, but with a steel beam bent around her body. How her telekinetic powers weren’t enough to defend herself. How her team wasn’t enough to save her. Though she knew the past was behind her, the implications of what he would have done to her if Rogue had not been there to absorb his powers and defend her were horrifying._

_Scott nudged her shoulder, and his presence grounded her. He blanketed her in soft comfort of simply being there, and the terror that had been pooling within her swiftly dissipated. Scott wouldn’t let anything happen to her._

_He wasn’t strong enough last time… came the snarky voice from inside her. Despite all his training, your boyfriend can’t defend you against something like that. Even Wolverine had trouble with him…_

~~~

Jean took a deep breath, and pushed the memories of last night out of her mind. It would do her no good to dwell in the past. Not when they had 800 missing mutants to find, and more names kept pouring in by the minute. A set of twins from Montauk, a mother and daughter from Albany, a grandfather from Queens – there didn’t seem to be any discernable links between them other than the fact that they were all mutants, and all from New York state.

She pulled up a list of anti-mutant hate groups. That one was too tiny - only about 25 members. No way could they have pulled off a kidnapping at this scale. This one was large enough, but they were located in Florida. The distance seemed too great to make the attack feasible. That one wasn't too big either, but they had money, and were located in New Jersey... Jean copied their information down as a definite maybe.

The pounding in her head grew worse.

~~~

_She was in the parking lot, curled up next to Scott’s car. Fat wet tears rolled down her cheeks, as she’d replayed the fight she’d had with Duncan. He’d been inches away from brawling with her teammate, and Jean had been forced to physically stand between the two young men before somebody wound up getting killed. Everybody said some things they probably regretted, but it was still Jean who was bawling her eyes out in secrecy._

_“You deserve better than that ya know.”_

_The redhead practically jumped out of her skin. Looming over her was the massive frame of Fred Dukes. In a panic she stood up and tottered backwards over the open frame of Scott’s convertible, almost landing inside of it. A ham-sized hand caught her wrist and pulled her out. Jean’s heart was pounding in her ears. His touch made her skin crawl. There was nobody else around to see what was happening._

_“He treats you like garbage. You should dump him.”_

_If she hadn’t been actively scanning the area for somebody around who could help her, Jean just knew that the underlying demand in Fred’s mind would have been “Date me instead.” If only he would just let go! Jean struggled for a moment, trying to wrench her arm out of his grip. She knew it was futile._

_“What do you want?” The question was low and raw. Her throat was still hoarse from crying._

_“Better question is, wadda you want? Why are you even with that guy? S’like every other day I come out here an’ see you cryin’ about sumthin’ that jackass did.” Fred peeled her away from the emotional safety that was the convertible, and set her down a few feet away from it. “You don’t deserve that. He don’t deserve you.”_

_“Oh yeah, and I suppose you do?” Jean spat. Already she was surveying the area for something large she could throw at him. It wouldn’t stop him, but it might slow him down for a moment. Scott’s car was out, but Lance’s jeep was just a few parking spaces away. She focused her mind on it for a moment, getting ready to toss it at him the moment he snapped._

_“I didn’t SAY that!” He snarled. Anger flashed in those beady eyes, and for a moment she was sure he was going to lash out and grab her again. The jeep started hovering a few inches off the ground. “All I said was you’re fucking stupid for dating a guy that treats you like Duncan does.”_

_“Oh yeah, and you just HAPPENED to be in the empty parking lot to be able to tell me that? Stop following me around. Just leave me alone!”_

_“I’m not fucking following you! All I wanted was to grab my lunch outta Lance’s jeep!”_

_“Don’t lie to a telepath! You eat in the cafeteria. I’ve seen you.”_

_“Then you’re a real lousy one. G’head, read my mind and tell me I’m lyin to you – I eat half my lunch in the cafeteria with Todd and the guys, and the other half out here. S’easier just to leave half way through lunch than it is to listen to everybody whisper ‘bout how much food is on my tray.”_

_Jean had half a mind to do it, to read his thoughts and pull out the dark fantasies about what it was he really wanted, why he was really there. But the thought of it made her stomach churn, and bile raise up in her throat. She really didn’t want to know what went on in Fred’s head._

_“Well? You gonna do it or not?” he demanded, taking a step toward her._

_“Back off!” The jeep rose ten feet in the air, and the rest of the cars in the parking lot gave threatening groans and creeks as the telekinetic energies swirling around Jean threatened to raise them up as well. Thankfully, the Blob did just that. He took a few steps back, and glared murderously at her before turning and running back to the school._

_Jean set the jeep down gently, and returned to her spot next to Scott’s car. A fresh set of tears was already falling down her cheeks, and they had nothing to do with the fight she’d had with Duncan._

~~~

A knock on the door pulled Jean out of her memories.

_Jean, if I could have a moment of your time?_

_Yes, of course Professor._

The door opened unbidden, and Professor Xavier wheeled into the room. He motioned for her to remain seated, before stopping a few feet away from her chair.

“I understand something is troubling you. Would you like to talk about it?”

“Oh, no Professor. I’m fine. Really.”

A wry smile crossed his lips. “Now, I’m quite sure I heard your memories telling Mr. Dukes to never lie to a telepath. You would do well to take your own advice.”

“You – you heard…” Jean gasped in horror.

“Mmm. Yes. I’m afraid you are projecting your thoughts quite loudly at the moment.” He sighed, and rubbed his temples. “I understand that your history with our recent guest is… less than encouraging.”

Jean snorted. _That’s an understatement._

“But! We must all remain on good terms until the missing people are found. I’m going to ask that you please do your best to be cordial to Fred while he is here. You don’t have to like him. You don’t have to be friends. You do need to be polite and refrain from pushing any of his buttons while he is here.”

The redhead was outraged. “Professor! Do you really think I go out of my way to make him angry? Do you think I LIKE being on the receiving end of… of… of THAT?”

“I do not believe that you knowingly do things to upset him. But I could sense in your most recent broadcast a certain level of anger, and a desire to push him into making retaliation on your part justified. You’re still upset about the kidnapping. That’s understandable. There is nothing wrong in feeling the way that you do.” The professor said soothingly. “You never did get any kind of closure about that incident. In this case, Fred’s physical superiority against your telekinetic powers – it frightens you and you don’t like feeling as though somebody has something to hold over you like that.”

The outrage drained away. The professor was right. He was always right. She hated feeling helpless. All these years of training, all these powers at her command, and some big dumb brute could tear right through them and do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. It was as if none of it mattered.

“Now, now. It doesn’t suit you to think like that.” Xavier tapped his forehead. “You’ve worked very hard to get where you are today, and you’re a different person now than you were when you first came to meet Mr. Dukes. And, I think you’ll find that he’s a different person today than he was when he first met you.”

Jean slumped her shoulders, and focused her gaze on the list of names. She really didn’t want to hear that sort of talk from the Professor. Not because she thought he was wrong, but because she didn’t want to think that he could be right. What if he HAD changed? What if all this time she’d been afraid of nothing?

“As I said, you don’t need to be friends. But I’m asking you to please consider that right now, Fred is far more interested in finding and retrieving the rest of his team than he is in you. And you should be more invested in finding YOUR team than in worrying about events that have already come to pass. We will find the missing mutants. And when we do, things can go back to normal as you’ve been wishing for.”

Jean gave him a watery smile at that.

“But in the meantime, I’m going to have to ask you to be strong. Both for your own sake, and for the sake of those that remain here. Can you do that for me, Jean?”

“Yes Professor. I’ll be strong for them.”

_I just hope I can be strong enough…_


End file.
